As an online editor at Rolling Stone, I get a lot of pitches. Most of them are for up and coming bands, while sometimes a random celebrity will be presented to me. Every once in a while I'll get a pitch for somebody that I love but know I can't use for any sort of content on the site. Luckily, the invention of this blog has thrown the doors open for all sorts of people who otherwise would be excluded from the Rolling Stone universe. That's why I got super-excited when somebody called me and asked if I wanted to talk to Jonny Fairplay. Normally I would have to say, "I'm not sure we could do anything with him," but this time I got to say, "Fuck yes." Fairplay, who will be appearing with Billy Corgan-approved wrestling promotion Ring of Honor in New York on May 10, talked about wrestling, Survivor, his fight with Danny Bonaduce and his incredibly strange brand of fame.

Were you surprised that you were brought back to Survivor? Jeff Probst hates your guts, doesn’t he?

I heard the stories about Jeff being like, "I didn't want him." And I’m like, "You didn't want me the first time dude, and look what happened then!" If you look back at the ratings, Survivor Amazon, which was the season before my first season, had dropped to number five in the ratings so they really were looking for a boost with Survivor Pearl Island, and we were number two every single week. CSI was number one and we were number two every week until they got rid of Rupert. The week they got rid of Rupert all of America was like, "Screw Survivor, screw CBS, especially screw Jonny Fairplay, I'm never watching this show again." The next week it was the number one show in America, and every week afterwards it was the number one show in America. People hated me so much that they wanted to be there watching the television set when I went home.

Is everything okay with your fiancé and your kid? Your exist seemed sort of abrupt.

Honestly, the week before filming Survivor was the whole Danny Bonaduce incident. CBS called me and were like, "Are you sure you can to do this?" And I was like, "I've waited four and a half years, I'm not not going to go." I had four root canals, and my entire top jawbone was completely shattered. I was on Vicodin, eating soup and drinking shakes as food. We go to start the game and they said no more Vicodin, even though I had three doctors' notes. I couldn't eat. That was game over. Once again, I went into Jonny Fairplay mode and did another wrestling angle. Let's see if America bites again, and they did.

Let's talk about wrestling. You were involved in wrestling before you got involved in Survivor?

In '98 I started doing indie wrestling on the east coast in North Carolina. I worked with a group called New Dimension Wrestling. I was originally trained by Manny Fernandez, "The Raging Bull." I was a bad guy manager. That's where I started the whole Jonny Fairplay thing. I'd come out there and I'd do the whole speech about how I don't believe in cheating, and it's all fair play for me, no shenanigans. So then at the end of the match I would cheat so the bad guys would win. At the end after the match they'd all be like, "I thought you were about fair play," and I'd say, "It's a misnomer, I lied." The heat it would get was ridiculous. I moved to D.C., then to Portland, and that's where we got into some really innovative edgy stuff. We had Coach Mike Jones, “The child molesting coach with the most,” and the fans would throw Underoos at him when he came to the ring. Eventually I moved to Los Angeles and I became Rowdy Roddy Piper's personal assistant. A year and a half later I'm on Survivor and I went out there and looked at Survivor in the view of a pro wrestler. My biggest goal on my first Survivor wasn't to win, but to create the character of Jonny Fairplay, keep that character on television for as long as possible and make that character the biggest bad guy in the history of television. I think I did pretty good on most of those accounts.

What is involved in being Roddy Piper's personal assistant?

He was doing a lot of really strange DVD movies, so basically my day consisted of meeting with producers, writers, and directors. Picking up scripts, reading through scripts, seeing if there's anything's there. Seeing if there's actually money on the other side. Stuff like that. It was a fun gig.

Then you started working for TNA Wrestling?

When I signed, they had me working closely with Jimmy Hart. Jimmy sees me as the next Andy Kaufman and in conversations with Bob Zmuda, Bob agreed. So we had a story line planned for TNA in which Bob was going to let us use the Intergender Championship and I was going to challenge women and it just never came to fruition.

Why not?

That's one of the greatest mysterious in wrestling. I thought it was a no brainer, especially with the support of Zmuda.

You're coming back to wrestling soon?

I'm going to be at the Ring of Honor show at the Hammerstein Ballroom. I'm going to visit my good friends Larry Sweeny and Chris Hero. New York is my second favorite city, so we'll go out the night before, do the town big, maybe talk about some of our exploits in the ring. And the champion, Nigel McGuinness, gave me a concussion the last time I was there, but I've been guaranteed that won't happen again. I think we'll be on the same page this time.

Are you clear to wrestle post-Bonaduce?

My jaw is still not healed, so it sucks. It's in the court system now, so hopefully everything works out there. It's just a shitty situation. I wish it never happened. I'm sure everyone involved wishes it never happened, from from Fox Reality, to CBS to my fiancé [Michelle from America’s Next Top Model], and especially me.

You've mentioned the Vicodin more than once. Are you clean right now?

I've been clean for about a year and a half now, ever since I moved out of Los Angeles.

Your brand of fame is pretty unusual. Are you okay with being known as a guy who is just on reality shows a lot?

Well, I always knew I was going to be famous. I didn't know how. Growing up as a little kid and then on to high school and stuff, everyone said, "You're going to be famous," and I'd be like, "Okay, how?" The happenstance of being picked for Survivor — the casting director just saw me at gas station and asked me — was insane. Once I was given that opportunity, now nothing is going to stop me. I was the biggest bad guy in the history of reality television. I am constantly working to keep my name out there, but at the same time my phone never stops ringing. If you're a casting director and you need a good-looking, intelligent, crazy guy, Jonny Fairplay is your kind of guy. With guys like Puck, I think there's a lovable quality to him and he's kind of crazy and all that. However, a producer's nightmare. I'm extremely professional. I show up and I'm like, "How crazy do you want it, full throttle or PG-13?" I'm not scared of anything. With Ty Murray's Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge, the first episode Ty says, "Who you guys think is gonna be first one to quit?" and everyone pointed to me and I ended up winning. I beat Vanilla Ice, Steven Baldwin and Nitro from American Gladiators. That's insane! I think the character of Jonny Fairplay is so multi-layered. He is intelligent, he is evil, he is kind of lovable and there's a heart there. Most reality stars don't bring all those dimensions to the table.

When you file your taxes, what do you write in as your occupation?

"Reality TV icon." I've been told by the IRS that as long as you pay them you can write anything you want.